


Stars Envy Me

by gaygreekgladiator (ama)



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 21:50:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/gaygreekgladiator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a line from the Spartacus novelization: "I, too, had a dream, Pietros. You were happy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars Envy Me

Their time is the night.

It always has been, since that first evening, after Auctus’s death, when Pietros was sent to Barca’s cell with wine and oil, as though Barca would seek comfort between his thighs. The gladiator growled at him, downed half the wine, and ended up asleep with his head in Pietros’s lap. They don’t speak of that night, but Pietros thinks he fell in love then, as he brushed his hand over Barca’s braids and stared down at the delicate skin of his throat.

The next time he is sent to Barca’s cell with wine, they drink together. The torches burn low as Barca trails his hands possessively over Pietros’s skin, starting with his shoulders, down to his waist, wrapping gently around his ankles and silently urging him to spread his legs. His fingers are sure and slick as they press into Pietros’s asshole. Every second of pleasure seems to last an hour. Pietros squirms and bucks and rolls his hips until his entire body is so tense that he thinks sleep will never, could never come. He would happily forgo Morpheus’s embrace for the rest of his life, if he can trade it for Barca’s.

But finally his fingers dig into the muscle of Barca’s arm and a choked moan escapes him. He is no virgin, but this is the first time he has ever seen stars dance behind his eyes. By the time he comes down, Barca has finished, and they lie together in the silence of the night. Barca rolls onto his back and gently directs Pietros to follow. He pillows his head on Barca’s chest, and somewhere between the beats of Barca’s heart, he falls into a deep and restful slumber.

A few scant days after that, Pietros is assigned to be in the ludus at all hours. They see each other more; Pietros is the one to hand Barca weapon and shield in the morning, to fetch him water throughout training, to sit with him and share noon meal.

Still, it is after the sun has set when he feels most content. The gladiators retire to the baths, and Pietros goes with them. He is supposed to deliver oils to all, and offer his assistance to any wounded or too sore to properly cleanse themselves; it is understood that he will not. He does a cursory job, and then returns to Barca’s side. In those moments, Barca drops all pretense of being a god.

Pietros delicately scrapes oil from around the edges of wounds, and over bruises. If Barca hisses, even briefly, in pain, no one else will know of it. He braids, twists, untwists, oils Barca’s hair with the patience only a lover can have. He massages tense muscles as Barca sighs and tilts his face up for a kiss. They retire to their bed, and Pietros feels as though he belongs.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Barca wakes him to fuck. Pietros wakes to a familiar hand on his cock and, eyes closed, strains upward until he meets Barca’s lips. Sometimes he is the restless one, and his hands chart Barca’s long, lean body as he takes cock in mouth. It thrills him when Barca awakens with a gasp that threatens a moan and clutches at Pietros’s hair with needy hands.

More often, though, when Pietros wakes, it is because Barca’s lips are pressed against his neck as he murmurs prayers in a foreign tongue.

“I have never set foot on the land of your gods,” he mumbles one night, shifting closer to the warmth of Barca’s body. It is winter, and cold.

“The land of Carthage is dead,” Barca says with a shrug. “It lives in me—the gods live in me. They have held you… kissed you… fucked you,” he says, playfully squeezing Pietros round the middle. “The least they can do now is answer a few paltry prayers.”

“And yet, when I would compel _my_ gods to offer blessings, you laugh.”

“Why would a Roman god favor me?”

“Greek gods.”

“Even worse. The Greeks drove that Trojan bastard towards Dido’s walls.”

“Hush,” Pietros rebukes. He rolls over, drapes his arm over Barca’s waist, and rests his forehead against Barca’s shoulder. Barca’s hand lingers at the small of his back. “Do not anger Aphrodite, or she may ensure that you… and your gods… never fuck me again.”

Barca laughs, and does not respond. On other nights, Pietros asks to hear his prayers. They are for happiness. For health, for freedom, for a peaceful bed, for love eternal, for sweet wine. _Do not fuck us over_ , he growls once, after placing a terrifying amount of money on Crixus to win. The next night they celebrate with wine sloshing onto bare skin.

They tell stories, too, when everyone else sleeps, because it is the only time when words can be shared in privacy, and some things are too precious to risk. Pietros tells Barca what he knows of Rome’s history, which is a fair amount, and of gods, which is more. Barca is a wonderful and terrible audience, constantly interrupting to remark on the foolishness of Romans or the flightiness of the gods, but at the same time impatiently waiting for every last detail, drinking them in like water in the drought.

“Tell me of Carthage,” Pietros whispers, when nightmares have draped him in sweat and left him shaking in Barca’s arms. Barca has nightmares, too, though they manifest in sleepless nights and migraines in the morning. Not cowering like a child.

Barca is quiet for a long moment, and Pietros worries that he has overstepped.

“Red soil,” he says finally. “That holds on to the rain even in the driest summer. People forged by war—farmers wielded hoes and pitchforks like tridents and battle-axes. There were great canvas tents for war meetings, and shrines everywhere, to Ba’al Hammon and Tanit. Especially to her. She reminded people of the divine queens, before our city was forced to rely on a fading dynasty.”

“Shh,” Pietros says distractedly.

“Apologies. I am no storyteller.”

“You use words so sparingly—I would savor every one of them.” Pietros touches his lips to Barca’s delicately. “But fading? No.”

“I am no king,” Barca says ruefully. “Nor a great leader. And unless you yet keep secrets from me, I shall bear no heir—the dynasty will end with my death.”

Pietros has dreamed of rough hands, cruel teeth, gleaming eyes on him, and endless overlapping shadows, and Barca’s corpse lying in cold water. He does not want to think of death.

“Barca…” he murmurs, ashamed to ask for a change of subject, but Barca does not force him to say the words.

“Sweet boy,” Barca says, like he did when he was drunk and in mourning, when his head fell to Pietros’s thigh and Pietros, instead of pushing him away or recoiling, simply moved his braids so they did not tug too harshly at his scalp, and delicately turned his head so, if he needed to vomit, he would be that much closer to the edge of the bed.

Pietros had not understood all his mumbled words that night, he remembers, but he had smoothed his hands over Barca’s forehead and stroked the skin of his neck when Barca indicated that he enjoyed it. He had flushed at the words, the heat spreading all the way to his shoulders. Before, he had been called foolish, simple, soft. Rarely sweet, and never by a man like Barca.

Are there other men like Barca?

“One day, if you desire it, I will show you Carthage. Pale shadow though it may be.”

“I would know all that is dear to you,” Pietros says, listening to Barca’s steady heart.

“Nothing is more dear to me than you. Do you desire it?”

The world is enormous. Pietros is tired, and all he can think is that he finds home in Barca’s arms. He smiles and closes his eyes.

“Let us speak of it in the morning.”


End file.
